I double checked with Laurie before posting this as its sort of pimping a trip i've organised but its not really of a commercial nature i guess.

I've booked a trek with "Adventure Kokoda" leaving Port Moresby (PNG) on the 21st June and i'm basically trying to find a few more takers as there is only 3 of us booked and confirmed. Ideally they want 5-10.

In short its an aussie led, 96km history trek through the PNG jungle over roughly a week. Cost from Brisbane is $4500 and includes all accomodation (tents on the trail), meals and return flights etc. I've probably spent another $500 on gear. Porters are also available to carry your gear (at a cost of course).

Apparently its high on many bucket lists but im struggling to fill spots so hit me up if your keen :)

Cheers

Mat

Wollemi said...
Bucket list? Buckets of mud.

You are better off celebrating the cultural richness of Papua New Guinea by going on a commercial sea kayak trip, rather than slipping and sliding in constant wetness.

$4500? Couldn't you do it for a third that, on your own accord, and get a truer sense of satisfaction? Or cheaper still to walk around Wilsons Prom, the original training ground of Australian Commandos? - if 'honouring' soldiers by pretending to replicate their suffering is your thing.

That's a bit harsh mate.

The porters each have a long memory on all the really stupid crap they have been expected to carry. I skipped the porter when I did it but some of the guys that gave there porter 20kg to carry still themselves carried as much, if not more than I did.

Great experience though, I did it seven years ago, the memories are still fresh enough that I'm not yet ready to consider going again. And it's not all rain, slush and mud, all we got on ten days was a light sprinkle, once.

I initially did the track for the physical challenge, once there you can't help but get immersed in the history of it all. I guess I was a bit ignorant of the richness in history and significance of it all prior to going.

Doing the track to honour or replicate what the boys did might be a motivator for some but this very quickly fades away once there. No matter how hard going it is you never have the chance to forget that no one is hiding in the jungle waiting to shoot you.

Mark _australia said...

I dare you to honour the sh!t others went thru even TRYING to replicate what they put up with.

Because I suppose given a response like that, you are in the services and have done the track and have lost friends or family doing that stuff in a real theater, and think it is an overly easy way to get a feel for what they did?

Right...?

(I do agree about porters though - do it right or don't do it at all)

Dear Mark,
Please note I was critical, not critical and aggressive in my post. I am not in the services, yet live currently in Richmond NSW. Several of my neighbours or people I have done outdoor stuff with are in the RAAF, and appear content with what they are asked to do. This has not included the Kokoda Track.
I stalled on responding to this post, knowing that I would be up for shouting criticisms sooner or later. I remain disappointed by many, who through absence of imagination, or through allowing their sub-conscious 'guilt' of not having been there to 'suffer' in time of war, elect to suffer because they feel it bonds them closer to our past servicemen.

Yes - I do feel that many Australians who walk the Kokoda track 'think that it is an overly easy way to get a feel for what they did'. We have a National War Memorial in Canberra that allows one 'to get a feel for what they did', too. Or a (heavily vandalised) commemorative walkway that commences at (by design) a former Army Repatriation (now General) hospital in Sydney. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokoda_Track_Memorial_Walkway



NB - examples follow so as to answer Mark's postulation, not to 'prove' anything - I do this stuff so as to access the beauty of wilderness, usually within Australia. I really don't mind if anyone asks for info on how to go about getting into these activities.

I have indeed replicated without trying 'what they put up with', such as;

- when multi-day bushwalking on Christmas Day in pouring rain across the Lodden Plains en-route to Frenchman's Cap in central Tasmania, encountering thigh-deep mud.
- carrying an additional 10 litres of water on a hot day up Mt Jagungal in NSW's Kosciuszko NP so as to camp on top with friends who weren't prepared to carry extra water - then being unable to sleep due to muscle strain.
- carrying my 27kg sea-kayak then portaging other gear up a hill 150m+ elevation for a lift by tractor across Deal Island when I was getting hammered by the surf at Winter Cove, during a solo paddle across Bass Strait.
- continuing with rigging of rope and abseiling prior to a steep exit-route through a Blue Mountains canyon after tearing a calf-muscle on the approach.
- cycling Cape York to Byron Bay to Wilsons Promontory, without a tent or flysheet, yet sleeping out every night - it poured rain on 22 of 31 days across outback NSW.
- running 44km of bitumen from Windsor to Wisemans Ferry over increasingly hilly terrain, as I did last week, with only a few 5km runs behind me prior.

These enough examples for you, Mark? I agree carrying kit + a machine gun over the Stanley Owen Range while in a theatre of war does not compare.

As some kind or rite of passage for Australians, I just don't appreciate the paying of AU$3000+ ex-Port Moresby to walk the Kokoda Track, when the Per Capita GDP of New Guinea is ~$1900. Nor of Australian trekking companies pledging as to heritage and to conserving wilderness wherever they may be, yet the Australian Government pledging (in 2009) $1.5million+ to 'improve' village airstrips...
for the medical care of Australians 'doing' Kokoda.